November Works in Progress

I have quite a few projects underway, some have a purpose e.g. coffee table and some with no particular place to put them in mind, e.g. change and key drop or as most of the Catholics call it the Holy Water table.

I did end up refinishing the stoop and top to the fireplace, see the post on satin finishes, to get a better more consistent look.









The barn is also looking like a real working wood shop, if the amount of sawdust counts. in fact it seems as if a lot of what I am making is sawdust.

The slab of wood on the assembly table will hopefully end up being a bench top for the original coffee table legs I had welded up last summer.

We also got the flat screen up and mounted above the fireplace and the trim work in the house is now all done!

The pallet load of curly redwood is also dwindling.

Next year I will get to the rear deck.

GABF

Thursday night Marlys and I went to the Great American Beer Festival at the Denver Convention Center. We had tried to go last year but found out after standing in line for about an hour that if you didn't already have a ticket you were out of luck.

This year we bought our tickets early and living downtown made for a simple walk over and home without needing a designated driver.

We showed up early but still ended up at the end of a line that stretched around the convention center. Once in, with our official GABF glasses for the 1oz pours, there were 406 brewery's from which to select. We came no where near trying all of the brewery's let alone the 1884 different brews that were there, but we did learn a few things.

• Marlys is not an ale drinker, especially India Pale Ales (IPA).
• Many of the stouts almost tasted like a whiskey.
• Apricot Wheat is my favorite fruit beer.
• There are a lot of bad beers.
• This was a real friendly crowd.
• It is possible to get beered out.

Most of the time the tasting was one or two sips then throw the rest in a slop bucket and rinse the glass out for the next brew. Even with the crowds we rarely waited more then a 1 or 2 minutes to try a brew.

Out of the ~40 brews (of 1884) we tried here are the brewery's (of 408) we thought would be worth a second look.

• Alltech's Lexington Brewing Co.
• Great Adirondack Brewing Co.
• Hale's Ales Brewing
• Redrock Brewing Co.
• Rooters Brewing Co.
• Smugglers Brewpub and Grill
• Trumer Brauerei

We didn't try those that are local and/or easily available, e.g. New Belgium, Breckenridge, Flying Dog, Tommy Knocker, Sierra Nevada etc.

It was also sometimes hard to smile when someone would tell you they mortgaged the house and spent the savings to start their brewery, when the brew was bad. In fact, I thought that the brews I made back in the 80's were better then some of ones I tried.

Hey maybe I should get back into it...and start a brewpub ;>

Wind Storm

The wind blew and blew this weekend as a cold front decided to park over the Collegiate's putting AC in a big pressure gradient. One indicators of the gradient was a 40 degree temperature difference between Aspen, Gunnison and west of the divide and Canon City and the Teller County area.

When we get wind storms at AC they generally are post frontal out of the NW, but this one has a steady southerly component. It started on Friday and didn’t end until front passage Sunday morning.

Many of the Aspen groves were at peak so this served to strip the trees bare ending some of the more colorful views in the area. It is/was still a good weekend for colors with gold, rust and reds. Most of the Ponderosa’s have dropped there needles also, so the look of an early stage beetle bit tree is ending.

On Friday night as the front would waver there would be times when the quiet was deafening, and then you could hear the train a-coming round the bend. When it would hit the house, beyond the boom of impact there was not the shutter, which had been our experience in previous homes, e.g. Parker, Eagan and Omaha. I guess the engineering on Pinon Rock, although a bit of a pain in the arse last year (4/9/06 post) is paying off…knock on wood. If you remember we ended up putting a steel I-beam in the floor of the great room to support the prow against just these types of forces.

This was a four day weekend for me and my goal was to get a few things marked complete on my project list. I also wanted to work on some none house projects like setting up a new table saw, assembling the legs for the coffee table and smoothing the carved bowls on the key/change table. Since last weekend we spent in town, there were also a couple of things that needed installation. But the main reason for the long weekend was the installation of a propane direct vent free standing stove in the lower level family room.

The stove went in without much of a hassle and the remote control thermostat and controller is pretty cool. This should more them take the chill of the lower level this winter. Now I can measure the space for a big screen to go in beside it.

Herb and I also wanted to do some work on the snow fences, e.g. repairing, moving and figure out how much more should be put installed. Eventually Jim would also show up to help and bring the end of day beer. This would turn into some real Keystone Cop scenes with the wind rolling up the fence as fast as we laid it out and the need for Jim to “gauge” the setting of each t-post before we could move on. The joke telling also got kind of dangerous when the punch line coincided with the lifting of the t-bar driver. We were lucky there were no on the job accidents that a set of Depends couldn’t resolve.

Over that last few weeks I have been researching the purchase of a new table saw. I have had a Makita 2703 since 1999 and it has served us well, but I had out grown its capabilities and a larger saw (read heavier) would be needed for a few up coming projects (e.g. cowboy sideboard). I would have loved to have a full cabinet saw, like BK’s Delta Unisaw, but it didn’t appear that I could find a cabinet shop that selling off its equipment. The new hybrid saws were still out of my price range, so a contractor’s saw seemed to be type I would be looking at. I read up on many of the brands like the Jet, Delta, Powermatic, General, Grizzly and on and on. All seemed to be good. So I listed what I wanted, it was a short list; a cast iron table with double cast iron wings, a belt drive motor (vs. direct drive) and a substantial fence system that would accommodate sheet wood. I started thinking that a Jet fit the picture and Rockler was having a sale, but I still kept looking around until I could come up with a good rationalization to tell Marlys on the “need” this saw would fill.

After a few weeks I was pretty confused, after reading numerous reviews it was clear each saw had good and less good points and unless there was a sale they were not in range of my price point of $500. When I have run into this before “tools of the trade.com” helps me get back to the basics of what I want. This is a web site that reviews tools people actually work with, not just sit and admire. Many of the high-end woodworking sites will do a great review, but there tends to not be any room for compromise (ah, the real world) so their picks tend to be high-end tools with a matching high-end price. My price point was very much in the bottom feeder range for this type of saw.

TOTT had a comparison review of contractor saws that caught my eye. After reading it they pretty much said that the Rigid TS 3650 even though it had a low end price its features were that of a saw at the higher end of the range. This was not a saw on my radar screen. I have seen them plenty of times in Home Depot; they are hard to miss because they are pumpkin orange.

I started to look into them and about the only complaint on one forum was that someone thought they wobbled and wouldn’t handle large sheet goods well, which was one of the reason I wanted a larger saw. A number of other folks said this must have been a poorly assembled saw, because they used it for large pieces day in and day out. So last weekend I did my own survey. First I went to Home Depot and butt checked the end of the front rail to get a feel for my baseline wobble index. Then over the course of the next two days I butt checked a number of Deltas, two Jets, a Powermatic, a Hitachi and a General. Of all of these the Powermatic was the most solid, the cast iron Jet was about like the Rigid and all of the other seemed to wobble more, but let me put this in context, none of them moved much and the leveler adjustment on the legs was the most critical item (if the table was assembled correctly).

So I went over to buy a saw.

They had a scratch and dent model for $50 off the list price, but that didn’t move me off of a brand new one in the box. I asked if there was any type of discount if a HD card was used and they said only if it was a new account, damn I had used that discount up when I bought the miter saw 5 years ago. Then a voice from the Contractors Desk said come over here for a minute, which I did. I was told that if I signed up for a Commercial Account I would get a credit and a discount applied to my first purchase. Sold!

One of the other items mentioned on the review forums was that you should plan to spend about 6-8 hours assembling the saw, and to get some help because with a complete cast iron top it could be a beast to stand up. No problem I figured I could call Mike or Herb, if I got stuck. Plus, no tools had ever taken me more then an hour to setup, so this must have been written by a woos.

Well, it took me right around 8 hours spread over two days, and I just about blew a gasket lifting it on to its legs; only to find out that since I had assembled it upside down, I had assembled the integrated wheel lift assemble…upside down. Now it sat in the middle of the floor and I couldn’t move it. It took some finagling, but I got the wheel lift off and repositioned correctly, so that with one step on a pedal the saw is raised off the floor so I can move it around. Even with the 40TPI Rigid blade this saw makes some sweet cuts.

So what did I give up; a magnetic on/off switch (safety) and a Biesmeyer Fence (the gold standard and costs as much as the saw), either of which I could retro at a later date.

So what else did I accomplish this weekend?
- Re-trimmed the garage doors after the door installers scratched the crap out of the trim putting in the doors last fall. I also painted the trim green, so I figured I was done with painting until Marlys said the doors themselves need to painted to match the house and oh BTW the trim on the rear of the house (that no one will see) has to be painted green also…when will the painting nightmare end.
- Installed the Hot Water Lobster underneath the utility sink to stop the cold water line freeze up experienced last winter. This would have been easier done last year before the washer and dryer where installed, but hey I enjoy a challenge. As I squeezed my 217#’s under the sink and after getting a shot of water as I disconnected the feed line I jerked and smacked my head. From there on out I only needed the flexibility of a contortionist to get everything in, along with being irritated by water dripping down my ear and neck. When I evacuated my frame from the seemingly shrinking space I found that the dripping water was actually blood and the puddle of water my head was in fact not water and was staining the grout in the tile floor…which had not yet been sealed. As you can see from the picture I did get it installed and set for a cool down temp of around 100F before the cross over opens on the hot water line and allows the warm water to move down the cold water line via convection.
- I also finally got around to sealing the coax entry point on the rear gable where the satellite dish cabling comes into the house.
- I also vacuumed up a number of wasps and crickets that moved inside from the change in temperature…I hope. For insurance I bug bombed the entire house when we left on Sunday.
- I also shooed a number of large Angus cows away that kept moving in on me as worked down near the barn on Sunday. This was accomplished by waving my arms and saving shoo doggie. As they meandered a few feet away I noticed from the rear that they had intact swinging appendages. I also remembered that bulls attacked the movement, not the color of the cape. So I stopped, and let them watch whatever it is they though I was doing that was so interesting. I should have taken a clue from Dusty, who the day before when finding “real cows” by the barn barked a few time to move them away, but on this day didn’t do anything, but look at these bovine bulls.
- Let’s see we also got the flat screen for over the fireplace, now I need to get the right bracket to hang it. We had planned to suspend it from the ceiling, but Marlys thinks an articulated arm attached to the wall would look better and I agree, so off to find one that lets the TV swing for viewing in the kitchen and the great room.
- We also bought a coat rack for the front door that is made out of a wagon tongue and harness horns. It must weigh in at 30-40# so I doubt it will be tipsy. It sure looks great and yes that is an authentic lasso and a hat dusty from the trail hanging on it.

I think that’s enough for now. Until next time.

A Thought on Autumn

Many moons ago my Dad said to me that the way to tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican was that a Republican would drink gin and tonic in the summer and manhattans in the winter, and a Democrat would drink beer in the summer and beer in the winter. This was probably not original, but I always give him credit for it, but it does create a conundrum in today’s day and age of wines and micro-brews.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that summer was over. I can now officially say it is as the Aspens are very yellow...

...and I drank the last Corona

…of this season.

Time has come to switch over to Fat Tire for the winter.

Not sure what that makes me…a consequentialist libertarian? Say that after a couple of beers.

Since a Guinness is good anytime I must be a GDI (There is a clue here).

There was a reason I took pictures of the walls before sheetrocking.

We decided a few weeks ago that a stove would be a good add to the lower level family room. We haven't really used the area, but plan on putting in a big screen sometime in the future. We also noticed that with the open layout of the house that cooler air will sink into the lower level making it noticeably cooler.


Another deciding factor was the power out situation from last winter, when we heated the upper level with the fireplace for a number of hours. This should take care of the lower level.



So off to Energy Alternatives we went to look at stoves. We used AE for the fireplace and vacuum system when we built the house last year.



We decided on a gas vs. a pellet stove for convenience and went with a Vermont Castings Brown enameled quasi old fashion model. It will be installed 10/5.



Last year when building the house we had anticipated this move and had Johnny's run a gas line to that area in the family room. Scott also ran power to the area so that the fan system on the stove could be hooked up. The stove will have a wireless thermostat/remote for control.


At the urging of David our framer, I photographed all of the walls before the sheet rockers closed them up. This was great advice as I have referred to them twice; once when the garage doors were installed and now for the placement of the direct vent for the stove. As you can see there is one bay for the stove piping to go through the wall between the gas line and the electrical run.


This library of photos is pretty extensive on the hard drive of the home computer and it can take sometime to figure out what you are looking at, but it is sure interesting to look at and remember how far we have come.



Fall has arrived in the our part of the Rockies as evident by the needle turn on the Ponderosa's. The needles that turn brown will fall off and become fire fuel on the forest floor until they decompose, which will take quite a while. Next summer following the example of the folks whose house survived the Tahoe fires this year we will clear the ground of fuel materials within 50' feet of the house. Taking some advice from Tim Longsdon the excavating contractor we will have a hole dug and deposit the slash and organics in it to be buried vs. burning.





While in Minnesota in August I scarfed up some railroad spikes from Bill Karsten. We had been looking for a towel rack for the area around the hot tub and when I saw them laying in his barn an idea struck me.

This is novel so I try never to overlook the occasion.

Anyway this is what I did with them. The wood still needs another coat of sealer so that the color matches the balcony/deck, but it has a nice rustic feel.

The patio is blotchie becuase now that it is a year old, I power washed and sealed it. The sealer will take a couple od days to dry.


Well, back to finishing up outside items before the snow flies. This weekend I am going to re-trim the garage doors (see 9/21/06 post). Last year when installing the doors we had a slight/un-sightly mix - up, which resulted in a rough cut along the door edge. I am going to trim over it with Hardi-Trim then paint the doors and trim green. once done I can really say the trim painting is done! Wait there is the back of the house. This is like a recurring nightmare.

A Sunday Walk Up Qaundary Peak

Since we started on the house last year we haven't had the time to do one of the things we like most about Colorado, and that is to roam around...roam around with a destination in mind.

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday we noticed that the list of items left to do were now of a less then critical nature and were more of "nice to dos", e.g. plant cactus in pots and arrange on patio. So a break in the proceedings could be scheduled.

We hadn't been hiking in a while, and had been talking about going up another 14'ter for a couple of years. The last time we had hiked one had been been Grays Peak (14,270') in 2001.

That one was no problem so why not another one.

This time we picked Quandary Peak (14,265") just south of Breckenridge in the Mosquito /Ten Mile Range. This image is from http://www.14ters.com/ and is from Hoosier Pass.

It was fairly close, has easy access to the trail head and Herb Zimmerman, one of our neighbors (another Minnesotan), had been talking about going up it too. So a date was set 9/2.

When going up these peaks just about any time you need to be concerned about changing weather and the possibility of rain, snow and lightening. Keeping this in mind we established our start time as sunrise, which this time of the year was right around 6:30AM.

Trip reports on the web from others who had gone up in the previous couple of weeks seemed to indicate that the climb up would take about three hours and the walk down just a little less. We were going up using the East Ridge Route, which would mean about a 6 mile round trip and an altitude gain of about 3200'. Spending a little time on top that should put us back at the trail head by about noon, hopefully before the clouds overdeveloped and the chance for rain and lightening increase. It probably goes without saying that being caught above treeline on wet rocky slopes and lightening looking for a rod is not safe.

To reach the tail head by 6:30AM, we left Autumn Creek at 4:30AM.

After a coffee and rest stop in Fairplay we were on the trail at 6:20AM. The alpenglow in the valley provided plenty of light.

Although I would put us in one of the early groups heading up we were not the earliest, which became real obvious once we summited (damn gave away the plot). We were led by Herb and Halle, the Black Lab, who proved to be the masters of the mountain.

The early part of the climb was a nice walk through a park like forest to treeline at about 11,500'. Halle had point. A good hike to get the blood flowing and hopefully find a pace and rhythm. Mine is slow, but I had already warned Herb.

Water always plays a big part in these hikes in that not only are you working hard, but as the pressure drops fluid respiration increases (I slept at a Holiday Inn last night). Marlys and I each had 2 liter camelbaks knockoffs and carried another 3 quarts in bottles, by the time we reached the bottom we would only have one quart left.

It was cool when we started and the group was clothed to match, except me. I knew I would be glowing quickly so I only had a light fleece on and convertable pants. I am noted for being able to work up a sweat just walking on a sub-zero day. This is another reason for carrying a lot of water.

According to some of the other trip logs I had read the most difficult part of the climb was suppose to be reaching the summit ridge shoulder just above treeline. For this group that would turn out to be total BS...unless the summit ridge shoulder was the false summit about 5 minutes and a fairly level walk from the true summit. The classification of this climb seems to be in question, just like ski trail difficulty. Most sites rate this as a Class 1 climb (easiest), LocalHikes has it at moderate, but Summit.org rates it as an advanced climb. It was more difficult then Gray's Peak is all I know.

By the time we had made it above tree line and gained the summit ridge we were an hour into the climb and needed to stop and shed layers. I was soaked. The sun was coming up over the eastern side of the valley, which put the terrain in to sharp contrast and focus.

For those of you familiar with the Autumn Creek Area, the mountain on the horizon in the very middle of this picture is Black's.

Please don't mind the dates on the pictures, as I had to change camera batteries and didn't have a set of reading glasses with me so I could reset the date.

Other then a layer of dissipating clouds, probably remnants of activity from the day before, it was a going to be a bright sunny day. Our fingers were crossed that the clouds would hang around for a while to keep the direct rays of the sun from baking us during the already hot task of getting up the slope.

After what would come to be thought of as the most pleasant portion of the climb on the crotch between the summit ridge shoulder and the climb to the false summit, what for me came the most challenging part of the climb. I would literally not look up to see how far we had to go and just concentrated on how far to the next stop to catch my breath. By the time we were about a third of the way up the face to the false summit we reached the two hour point.

A cool breeze had also started to come up and layers were being added back, except me who was still soaked.

I was bringing up the rear. I like to think it was because I wanted make sure we all made it up, but with the looks from my partners it appeared they were more worried about dragging my butt to the top if/when I collapsed.

3 hours and ten minutes into the climb we reached the summit. Although we were one of the early groups there was a crowd already there, signing the summit log, taking pictures and resting before starting down. Everyone was in great spirits after achieving the goal, there were many offers to share energy bars and M&M's (Vitamin M). Some guy even started up a small camp stove to make coffee.

Marlys was looking for a private spot, but none were to be found on this rock pile.

The mountain masters didn't even look stressed.

Halle had some water, then it was time to head down.

To use on old saying "Getting to the top is optional, but getting down is not."

We started down to lines of folks heading up. This made for a stop and go type of progress. Groups within a 1/2 hour of the top would be greeted with "You don't have far to go now." Beyond that point you just said "how'ya doin", because you didn't want to break their spirit by telling them they had quite a way to go.

Speaking of spirit breakers, were the folks running up and down the mountain, and the guy carrying his child in a backpack. We passed him going down and he repassed us a little while later on his way down. Boy, did I feel old.

We weren't much below the false summit when cumulus clouds began to appear. These would portend the rain and lightening normal in the afternoon in the mountains this time of the year.

On the way down we continued to pass groups going up. These people were chancing it with this late of a start. An unscientific observation was that the later the group started the less prepared they seemed to be for the climb ahead. They tended to be in light shoes and only have a bottle of water. We even passed a group below tree line headed up when the sky had already become dark and ominous just before noon.

Although the downward trek is easier on your lungs, the knees and thighs take a beating. Part of this I think is because on the way down you don't stop to rest hardly at all because you aren't winded. Virtually the entire hike had been on loose rocks and large rock steps, I couldn't imagine doing them in the rain.

We reached the truck around noon, and collapsed into positions that would be hard to move from within minutes. The rain hit us within 20 minutes later as we drove over Hoosier Pass. I sure there were at least a hundred people on the mountain. Later that day a camper would be killed from a lightening strike.

We figured that at the rate of one 14'ter per year we will all be past the century mark before we finish. We are starting with the easiest ones first to get in shape.

Pat

End of Summer

Haven't had a chance to catch everyone up much this Summer and now it will be over in a couple of days. Seems as if we have hardly been up here, but we are here virtually every weekend. I still have a couple of weeks of vacation to burn so there may be some additional days scheduled for fall.

Summers are fairly short in the high country, but Fall can be incredible. I am expecting this years to be, because of the amount of water we have had this year. Or is that a rural myth (vs. urban myth)?

The sun can be intense as my sunburn (multiple times) head can attest to, so we do have a number of shade creators around. More on the sun later.

Soon we will need to change the tea time beverage of choice from margaritas and Corona, to wine and Fat Tire. Oh, the problems of seasonal change overs.

Heck, even the grass is coming up in the front yard (ha!). I may even have to take the lawn mower to it.

I suppose I could wait for the cattle (proper term for cows, heifers, bulls, etc.) to trim it and deposit the clippings, in their own way...on the patio.

Marlys has adopted deck/balcony maintenance as her own. Last year she did the first waterproofing, and this year she is following it up. She believes a six foot scaffolding would be a good investment and after watching her stand on the VERY top of the eight foot step ladder, I have to agree. It always looks like an accident just waiting for the proper time to happen.

We still have a number of things that didn't get done over the summer, but there is always next year.

The biggest project in the carryover category is the rear deck.

And as a friend of ours says about projects her husband undertakes, "Abracadabra, and two years later its done!"

I am still in the planning stage on the deck.

As you can see the temporary idea didn't pan out. It was a carryover from the trailer era.

BTW the burn mark in the corner is from getting a Terra cot ta fireplace too hot and having it start to scorch the plywood. You would think we would learn after having the SAME chimmera (sp?) burn THROUGH the deck back in Minnesota.

Its not like I even need to buy materials. They have been on site aging for a year now. You know you don't want to use lumber until it decides its ready.

All of the trim painting is complete, except the garage doors (I guess then it isn't complete.) and that should be done in the next few weeks.

I almost became a human lightening rod during this project as I could only paint out of the heat of the sun, so that meant early morning (before sunrise) and when clouds would provide some shade. Sometimes those clouds also provide some lightening.

I keep think we need a dragons head or something for the prow. Kinda like the prow on a Viking longboat. Maybe we can get our son the artiste to do something. But probably only if we provide a commission in some amount, as if school isn't enough.

We had gutters installed. After last winter that became a priority before the flakes fly this season.

The snow would melt and refreeze on the deck/balcony, then drip on to the patio and refreeze again right in front of the doors.

Then of course it would snow on top of the ice, and I would do the slip, slide , plop mountain two-step.

We also installed retractable screen doors in green.

Even though the mosquitoes are pretty rare up here, flies can be a pain. I have reduced the population using a fly trap that utilizes a bait the smells like...well crap, or as Mike Rowe would say "poo" (Dirty Jobs).

It seems to really attract the flies, since it needs emptying pretty regularly. Its called a Fly Magnet and I got it at Lowe's.

Remember for every female fly you trap you reduce the potential problems by thousands.

We still need to touch up the white brackets, but they work real nice.

It has also become obvious that we need to tint the prow windows. This will be an inside undertaking when the temp drops a bit. We are going to go with a gray, non-reflective 35% tint. About the most we can go with the double glazed windows. I am looking at getting the film from Concord Films.

The road is amazing. Tim widened it to 16' and adding packed down road base. It is almost a shame to drive on it. Now I need to get the plow for the ATV.

You probably can't see it, but right in front of Dusty is my $300 coffee table base mistake. I gave the fabricator the wrong measurements and it is too small to support the curly redwood slab top. I have decided to forget the steel base and go with matching curly redwood leg and stretcher base. Should have gone that direction in the first place.

We are going to use the mistake base as a bench bottom. This is going to be an expensive bench.

We have also added another toy in that we moved the hot tub up in July and it is connected and ready to go.

The nice thing about being in the middle of nowhere is that soaking commando is not a neighborhood eyesore.

Its got a great sound system built in, only problem is that we can only get one radio station (too lazy for CD's) and that's the "River Rat" out of Salida. Its OK, but I am going to need to hook up a FM transmitter to the IPod for tunes.

Tootles, til next time.

We work in the city, but live in the mountains.

Sounds like a "duh", but in fact after moving into the crash pad last weekend it has become pretty obvious. Even spending 4-5 nights a week there doesn't make it home, more of an extended stay hotel.

It is convenient though in that everything is only a few steps away...other then taking Dusty out, which is four flights down.

Thats a Croc of ....oh they do feel good!

I have been one of "those" people who have made quiet fun of grown-ups that wore Crocs. Well maybe not that quiet ask Marlys. Crocs being those new-age earth shoes straight from some folks (at least originally) in Boulder, Colorado (where else). This article in Slate captured well my state of mind concerning these "things" (http://www.slate.com/id/2170301/nav/tap1/).

Imagine my surprise when I saw the leader of the free world wearing a pair! Now GW had not gone all the way by wearing ones in lime green , but understated black.

So they must be OK, right?

Now you need to understand I have been a wearer of clogs (Scandinavian influence of living in Duluth, MN) , another niche footwear, since the late 70's, but never, ever in public.

My current set of Simple's are becoming long in the tooth and I have been on the look out for another pair of house/yard easy-on, easy-off shoes.

Friday evening while walking through the local mall I made a major error in judgement...I tried a pair on.

These were not ordinary Crocs the size of small snowshoes, but the Croc Off-Road's (arrgh, more power). These are so big and light I should be able to walk across swamps (Croc Pun). They even have Velcro to snug them down when extra support is needed for off-road control.

They do feel good.

It has been a while

Since I last posted about the house quite a bit has happened.

The painting on the exterior, e.g. the trim has been completed. I rented a lift to get to the fascia.

The barn has been repainted to match the house. This involved priming with an etching primer so that the paint would stick to the baked on factory finish applied to the metal panels.

Fireplace trim has been completed, using the curly redwood. I am also using another plank of the curly redwood to make the coffee table for the great room.

Our house in Parker in under contract with a buyer and we have rented an apartment downtown Denver.

We journeyed to a mecca for Eagle Fans - Hotel California while spending a week in Cabo San Lucas. We also signed the door to prove we were there.

We are going to be tied up with moving for the next couple of weeks, but the next two projects will be the installation of retractable screen doors and a native stone retaining wall off of the garage wing wall.

Parker Home on the Block

After four active weeks of prep, yesterday we listed the our current house in Parker for sale.

The number of items completed during that time, put us back in the construction mode.

During this time besides the cleaning normally done we did a few other things:

• Painted the family room, master bedroom, master bath, laundry room and Derek's Den.


• Replaced three windows, where the seals had broken.


• Removed the furniture... a few times.


• Sold the dining room set.


• Refinished all of the hardwood floors.


• Recarpeted the entire house.


• Removed a tree in the backyard.

We ended up even sleeping on the floor in the office one night when the floor refinishers became fairly aggressive in their taping to keep us out of the house and off the floor (we had been big stepping between the garage and stairway for the previous nights).

But now its for sale, and we will wait and see.

Next weekend, Pinon Rock and relaxing...wait, I need to re-do the rear ceiling trim, move in the new couches, etc. maybe we can sit around for a couple of hours on Saturday anyway.

Waugh Mountain

The mountain that provides our main view is called Waugh. It is 11,710' tall and is highest peak in the South Park Hills Range.

I am not sure where the name came from. I understand "waugh" is a exclamation comment that was common to mountain men, and there was also a Frank Waugh that was instrumental in the set up of the National Forest systems. If anyone knows the origin for "our" mountains name please post.

Here are a couple of interesting links on Waugh Mountain. The first is a trip report by a group that snowshoed to the summit in 2005.

http://www.ryananderin.org/11ers/02.20.05_waugh.html

The other provides some stats on the peak. The ones I find interest are that although it is not even in the top 300 highest peaks in Colorado, it is 55th on the most prominent and it is the 79th most prominent in the lower 48 states.

http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=16613

The mirror, sauna, snow, tv bracket and Derek's plans

It has been a very busy weekend, but every weekend seems that way.

On Thursday night, I headed up to so I could get the trailer and take it to Pueblo for sale on Friday. The forecast was for thunderstorms-snow to move in so I wanted to get it loaded up and out of there before the roads got sloppy.

It took me a couple of hours to get it disconnected and hooked up to the truck. I was watching the clouds move in the whole time, so I didn't take the time to clean up the area once I was hooked up. I just hit the road.

The drive in was pretty nice and in fact this was the farthest the trailer had been towed since being bought in 1998 and hauled out to Pinon Rock. In 1998 when we towed it out we used our ½ ton Tahoe and although it was within the weight capacities it was not a relaxing 19 hour drive. But I have to say that when towing with the ¾ ton Ford it was a much better experience.

Once I had it dropped off I headed back to Parker. It looked pretty lonely sitting there.

The plan was to spend the weekend in town and clean up the yard and other things in prep for listing the house.

I got on a conference call for work on the drive back north and arrived about 2pm.

Marlys had spent the day at home so that the window repairman and carpet measurement people could swing by. She also raked and cleaned the yard.

By The time I got there, there was nothing left to do.

I checked the weather and saw that it was going to rain Friday night and Saturday. We decided to head back up to the property, as there were something's we could get done even in the forecasted rain and snow.

We accomplished a couple of thing this weekend.

We hung the mirror in the upstairs bathroom. It turned out pretty good. This has been a 2 month ordeal, in the ordering, the delivery of a broken mirror, the return and the resend.

I built a bracket and shelf to setup the TV in the office.

I tested the poly solution on the fireplace pieces and guess what...it worked. Oh, and if you read the label instructions it said to stir before using.

The fireplace pieces have not yet been mounted because they cupped because I had only finished one side...added moisture. So I finished the underside to try and recover.

I also replaced the high temp limit on the sauna which has been cause problems since the install. Marlys and I could only hold out 30 minutes in it now since we could get the temp all the way to 180 degrees, and that was after standing on the patio, in the snow, midway through to cool down for a while. Next time we will try a real Finlander temp of 195 degrees.

It’s hard to believe it is snowing again this weekend. Last Saturday we took a hike down to Pete and Dana's and most of the way I was shirt less (so those of you wondering what the big albino elk thing was, it was moi) to get a start on a tan for the trip in May to Cabo.

We then sat for ~3 hours on the patio and drank Margaritas. I had 3, which was the most I had ever had. Marlys had become very good at making them.

We also got a call from Derek who got a summer job in Gunnison, and will not be coming home when school ends on May 4.

Life changes so fast. I wonder if he will ever live at home again.

The Satin Poly Mystery

Did you know that satin polyurethane is really glossy? Let me explain.

We have finished all of the natural wood surfaces in the house using Minwax Satin Polyurethane. Seemed to be no problem initially. We were getting the expected results.

BUT when we would put on a second coat it would result in a very glossy finish that would get glossier and more plastic looking with each coat.

We though we maybe had gotten a bad batch of poly so we bought additional cans, but got the same glossy results. It had gotten to the point where I would steel wool the finish after it had dried to get rid of the gloss.

This morning while re-reading an American Woodworker magazine for the umpteenth time, I spied a small letter to the editor asking about the exact glossy poly dilemma we are experiencing.

Turns out that there is no such thing as "satin" poly.

Satin poly is really a glossy poly that has had a dulling agent added to cut the sheen. If the poly is not mixed prior to each use the agent settles out. I have seen this in the poly we have used. I thought it was cured poly from not sealing the can well between use.

Mystery solved. If you are using "satin" poly mix it before each use, but let the bubbles settle out before use so they aren't transferred with the poly to the finish.

Getting the Parker House Ready for Sale

Well we are back into the role of getting bids and coordinating sub's.

We are getting the Parker house ready for sale.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been moving items up to Pinon Rock and filling one stall of the garage with "stuff" that we will sell during the All Stonegate Garage Sale.

I thought we had gotten rid of most of our garbage 4 years ago when we moved from Minnesota, but the it appears that we have accumulated a whole new layer. Some even appears to have been moved with us from Minni.

We also have one "un-named item" that always seems to sit at the back of the closet, that has made the move from Minneapolis to Omaha to Eagan to Parker and still when I asked about throwing it out the answer was no we may use it sometime, so it will move with us again to Pinon Rock.

The Real Estate Agent has gone through the house with us and the items we will be doing before selling is pretty much what we had planned on:

• Paint the basement, Master Bedroom, bath and some high traffic areas.
• Paint the trim on the exterior. House had been painted in 2002 and has a three color scheme where the lightest trim color has not held up as well as expected.
• Re-carpet. Even though we re-carpeted in 2003 the color Marlys and I picked out is bad.
• Re-finish the hardwood floors.
• Replace and windows with broken seals (fogged).

The interior painting was finished yesterday and the exterior painting is scheduled to start tomorrow. Carpet measuring is scheduled for Friday, along with the windows. The floor re-finishing will be from done between 4/2-6.

The good news is that we will be moving our hot tub to Pinon Rock. We bought the tube in 2004 and it is a top of the line Beachcomber. We have been real pleased with it and had planned on buying the same thing for the Rock. According to the REA the tub would only add a few thousand to the house so we have decided to excluded it and move it. I contacted the tub movers and it will cost in the range of $500 to disconnect move and reset at PR. We had the electrical run and the concrete poured in anticipation of this last year, so this will another project for this summer.

We hope to list the house right around 4/15. If we sell it by the end of summer we will be happy.

Jekyll and Hyde Fireplace Top

Saturday saw the work start on the fireplace cap.

This began by finding two slabs of redwood that had at one time been one. A template scribed and cut to match the FP top was used to find the pieces that would work.

The template was made by laying a piece of scrap of aspenite on the FP then scribing and cutting it to match the stone. The wall edge became the reference edge for the work.

The pattern was screwed on to the slabs, then using a router with a template plate I cut a groove to match the template one inch deep.

The next job turned out to be the work of the day, in that the area needed to routed out in side the groove. The largest router bit in my vast inventory of 6 router bits was only 3/4" in diameter. I made a lot of sawdust (router dust for the purest) over the next two hours.

The crack between the two slabs was glued up and the template was then screwed back into the inlay (routed) area. It was clamped up and left over night to dry.

The top surface was had been sanded with a belt sander and the dust from this process was saved in a box for later. This was the first time I have used a hand held belt sander and I can tell you that my shoulders are still sore.

On Sunday the top was pre-fit to see how it would look.

We decided on a design change was needed.

The kitchen side would remain a "live edge". This became the Mr. Hyde side (wild). I still need to do some work with the wire brush before it is ready for finishing.

The great room side needed to look more "finished". We scribed an arc across this front. This is the Dr. Jekyll side.

To cut the arc became problematic as the glued up slab was so large and I wanted a clean cut. This meant the bandsaw would not work, due to the manuvering need to make the cut. The rotozip was too small (need a 3" cut depth) and the same was true of the router. I thought of using the saber saw, but of course that was in Parker. I was going to attempt it with the recip saw, but I was uncomfortable with what I saw (pun) the result being. As you can see my thinking was very "Norm" (New Yankee Workshop), in that if it wasn't a power tool it didn't even come to mind.

Then I remembered the portable power plane that had been gathering dust in the barn for a couple of years. It had a 3" width and gave a nice finished cut. This could be used to cut the arc to within 1/8", or so, of the scribe line, then finish to the line with the 3" wide belt sander. This would be the ticket.

The planing of the arc only took a few minutes. The edge were squared using the nifty jointer fence included with the planer, but never before used The was then sanded to size. The pile of shavings was impressive.

The top could have been finished, if I had only had some super glue. The slab still had a few imperfections, e.g. the crack in the front edge that needed repair. The plan was to use the sawdust collected during the surface sanding to fill any divot or crack, then drip on the super glue and sand it down. This trick was learned from a TV program called Woodworks, which you should look at if you get a chance. David Marks makes some of the nicest (and expensive) furniture I have seen.

Next weekend I should be able to complete the top. I plan on finishing the Redwood with a Linseed and Tung Oil mixture.

Glulam to Sheetrock Trim

We finally figured out a trim style that worked for the area where the glulams intersect the sheetrocked walls.

We have tried beveled pine strips and quarter round without really being happy with the results. Either the color of the trim wood was too light or the shape didn't not blend well. I think if I was doing this over again I would have had the sheetrockers continue the bullnose edge up over the glulam, but I didn't so here I am.

But it was a beautiful day on Saturday so I spent some time sitting around and taking in the view.

The snow is melting, and another week of this weather should see it gone.

Hard to believe that just a week ago folks were having a had time even making it down Autumn Creek Drive. I even got stuck a couple of times with the truck.

Don't know if it is visible in the picture, but the beer is approriately named "2 Below".

Back to the trim.

What has worked was to replicate the bullnose profile with wood. In order to do this I needed to find pieces that were the same species and color as the glulams. Luckily I grabbed every scrap end of glulam material, during the frame-up, and stored it in the barn during construction, so I had a source.

After sawing to rough size then squaring them up on the jointer, I router an edge with a 1/2" roundover bit. This profile was close but not quite copacetic with the sheetrock bullnose edge, which is probably a 3/4" profile, but the nearest store was a couple of hours roundtrip away. So I did it by hand.

I used a small plane to trim it to match. BTW: I used a small apron plane made by a German company named Rali. The nice thing about this plane is that it has replaceable blades. SO, no sharpening and honing, another thing I am not good at.

Once I had them formed to match and mounted the pieces were finished to match the glulams. I think they look great, but you be the judge.

As you can probably tell some of the items done to finish the house and get the CO, now on second look we are modifying.

Working the Fireplace

To complete the trim on the fireplace I need to add a cap and a stoop/seat cover around it. The cap is needed because this is a pennisula fireplace and there will be a TV located on top of it.

The stoop/seat will allow people to sit in front of the fireplace, on the great room side.

These items will need to cover the top of the stone veneer that has been applied.

With the types and colors of wood in the house we have decided on a darker wood for these pieces. I explored going with the native/natural beetle kill Ponderosa Pine, but the blotchy nature of stains applied to softwoods made me hesitant. We also looked at a stained Maple, but we have three Maple varieties already in the house.

So we started to look around.

Then another idea presented itself and that was to have a "live edge" on the seat portion versus a sawn finished edge. Live edge means that the natural edge of the slab is used. In this case minus any bark.

So the search was on, to find a live edge slab of a "darker" wood variety that would be large enough to encircle the fireplace. I check out a couple of places in southern Colorado; Collector's Wood specialties, near Gardner and The Wood Works in Canon City. CWS had what we were looking for but the price was way out of our ballpark and WW didn't have the type of slab we needed, but I will think about them for a future road gate arch project.

So I turned to a couple of sources used many times in building this house; Craigslist and EBay. After a few weeks of mining their sales and auctions I found some intriguing wood being offer out of Crescent City California. The slabs were gleaned old growth curly redwood. It seems that Dan at Curly Woods would remove wood and stumps left after the areas redwood groves were cut in the late 1800's-early 1900's. This was before today's forestry techniques and practices had come in to play, where virtually every part of the tree would be used and the area cleaned up before re-seeding.

After talking with Dan a number of times I ended up buying a large slab of curly redwood and the a 5' slabbed log, all 3" thick. Dan loaded it on a pallet and shipped it to me.

Once it was transferred to the pickup I was surprised that it still had an aroma.

Because of its age it has darkened to a nice color, but should lighten up a little after it is smoothed and sanded.

Now the work begins.

I will need to edge glue two slabs in order to form the cap mantle. These slabs will be edge finished on the outside with a few degree undercut.

Once it is the proper size and smoothed it will be set on the fireplace and the stone veneer outline will be scribed on the bottom. I then plan on routing out the scribed area to a 3/4" depth, that way it will sit around the top of the stone veneer.

The seat slab will be where I think most of the work will take place. The slabs measurements are in line with what I need, but the nature of a live edge presents the challenge to see if there is a better way to display it and if that way will cover the needed area.

After looking at it in the "flesh" versus a picture the best layout may bring it up a couple of inches to narrow. If that's the case I plan to cut the fireplace slot narrow and then scarf joint it on the exposed edge to gain the needed width. At least that is my plan now. This weekend I will template the seat area and then overlay it on the slab to see what works.

Once I get it to the right size, it too will be set, scribed and routed to sit down and around the stone veneer.

The plan right now is to finish the pieces with a Tung and Linseed oil mixture, that I tend to use on everything. I will keep you all posted as to my progress.

I will also use pieces of the redwood to trim the vertical fireplace to wall area.